Monument record MBC44886 - Curvilinear ditched enclosure, Silverstone Golf Course

A large curvilinear or D-shaped ditched enclosure of uncertain date and function is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located on Silverstone Golf Course and centred at SP 66119 40972, the fragmentary and indistinct cropmarks suggest a curving ditch up to 13 metres wide that encloses an internal area about 208 metres NW-SE at its widest. The NE facing side of the enclosure has a number of fragmentary ditches that may comprise the linear side of the D; if so, this would enclose an internal area about 170 metres SW-NE. To the south, a linear ditch up to 5 metres wide extends about 112 metres SSE, from which west side extend further ill-defined ditch sections. Also visible are three circular pits or macula that may be associated. Although visible on aerial photograph taken in the 1940s and the 1980s, they were not visible in 1963 or 1973. Aerial photographs taken in 1991 show the beginning so the golf course’s construction, after which time none of the features are visible on any aerial photographs available to the project. Dating and function is uncertain. The fields in which these features were located prior to the golf course were still shown as woodland on the 1814 Ordnance Surveyor Drawing, being part of the former Whittlewood medieval hunting forest. The 1st edition OS map shows that some of these woodlands have been felled by 1881, creating agricultural fields, within which the cropmarks are visible. It is possible that the cropmark enclosure may represent activity dating from the late Iron Age through to the medieval periods (1-7).